I am only flesh and time, the skin of me
stretched taut across the framework of millennia:
I am yellowed, I am porous, I am
temperamental from the weathering of these years.
The trumpet of the men who call us forward
rises above our voices, and maybe that is the point.
Under their melody we sound unified, our
heartbeats obscured, our footsteps lost
to the song. These are what I carry in me:
the soft, dull thud of the crowd upon the earth,
the miles our flattened feet have walked,
and the constant, heaving, deepness of the hearts
that fall in line, the crowd, our blood.
So use the heel of your hand, the heels of your feet
to find the beat that carries through air and earth. I am
the gatherer, the harpist, the crook and the staff:
we go together, a body of souls, that builds
and breaks and builds, whether the leaders lead or die.